welcome to "up." the decision to fire fbi director james comey is continuing to haunt president trump. overnight, the "new york times" published a bombshell, the firing prompted the fbi to look into whether the president was working on behalf of russia. james comey's firing was one catalyst, according to the report. this was another.

>> i was going to fire comey. my decision. it was not -- >> you had made the decision before they came into the room. >> i was going to fire comey. and, in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. it's an execute by the democrats for having lost an election. >> this story fundamentally changes our understanding of what has been and what is being scrutinized. it has the president firing off tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet this morning. on msnbc last night, michael schmidt explained what led the fbi to start this inquiry. >> there's a long standing relationship that trump has with russia. there is all these things going on and they decide to go forward with the monumental historic decision of opening up a counterintelligence investigation into the president. is the president tied to the adversary? >> it's important to take this new information and dovetail it with what we heard from james

comey just a couple months before he was let go when comey disclosed the russia investigation to lawmakers. >> the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. >> joining me this morning, liz wimstead, the founder of lady parts justice. jamil smith is a senior writer, lisa green is an analyst and nicholas is an msnbc national security analyst. lisa, here is the piece in the in, times this morning. we have what's dovetailing here, obstruction and counterintelligence. we had a spirited debate about the degree to which which is surprising in the last hour.

your reaction just from a legal perspective. how extraordinary is this that this has come to light? >> it's chilling, it's extraordinary, but it also, at the same time, kind of explains a lot of disperrate facts, rod rosenstein apparently willing to wear a wire, trump's interview with luster holt and why he would bring russia up. and you start to want to go back and look at all of the information we've been seeing and try to understand it in light of this extraordinary set of allegations, right? the other question i'm dieing to know is rod rosenstein is planning to step down. he's been supervising the mueller investigation. by all accounts, he's not someone who would leave prosecute maturely. what does he know about the status of this investigation and will we ever find it out? >> pete my colleague tends to say rod rosenstein tends to stay on that job until this investigation is over.

>> what kind of debate is there among former law enforcement yourself about this action? i want to get your reaction to it, that the president of the united states would be targeted for an investigation like this. >> well, it's obviously an extraordinary, unprecedented, you know, pick your adjective situation. but what it also means from my perspective is that not just the set of witnesses or potential witnesses that we know the fbi was talking to or the prosecutors were talking to would enter into play, by literally every utterance the president made about matters specific to russia. if they're concerned about undo influence with respect to russia, almost anything he would say or do related to russia would be in play. whether that's what he did at helsinki with the sell sinky summit, straight comments he would make to the press about putin or russia. that's a lot of material to look at. >> of course going in the office talking about james comey being a nut job and what a relief to

see him go. what can we look at in light of what's being reported in the times today. >> right. i think we have to take a new look at everything this person has done, especially when he talks about security. he's done a lot on border security over these last several days and especially with regards to the shutdown. and i think we need the take that into a different light. when he talks about security, what is he talking about? we have the president of the united states who potentially helped him with an election. whether or not this adversary was participating in that effort, we have yet to firmly ascertain. but we understand this president has done enough since that election to essentially collude in that effort. so it's whether or not he was colluding before the effort, he's certainly done enough

since. >> liz, to that point, we've been talking about this shutdown. he's been talking about the wall. here we have this story cropping up. this something he's avoided, not wanted to talk about. >> i mean, the thing that i keep going back to is that weird two-hour meeting with putin that nobody knows what happened in it. it explains why this tweet is so deliberate. maybe one of some things to think about that, as well. this will be hugely significant. i think we would all agree this investigation was started. how about that complimentary part? >> i think it's a testament to

the strict secrecy that robert mueller and his prosecutors has managed to keep on this process, the idea that we wouldn't know that this extraordinary set of allegations might be investigated or part of the investigation. it changes all of our understandings of its scope. and only last night do we find out that that is happening. and obviously, to me, this becomes unanswered question number one because it's far and away the most important question and also the answer will help us understand the rest of the narrative, how we got to this presidency and what's been happening since. >> there is a piece by ben whittis, talked to michael schmidt. he point that he makes is we so often talk about coordination. if the campaign coordinated with russia, he's emphatic and we're going to talk to ben in a few minutes here on the show, as well.

it was always about russia and it's still about russia. >> it is one of the things the president has said again and again is he feels persecuted by this investigation. it started with a broader look that we are obliged to go look in every corner. not anything else. >> i just want to go back to this. pin you down a little bit more here. what would have to happen for this to take place? we were talking about all the bureaucratic steps for these investigations to begin. what would have to come into play for this to happen? >> i'm not a career prosecutor nor was i a law enforcement official, but surely i would

have a tightly compartment conversation at the senior levels of the department of justice involving both the fbi and the department of justice to decide whether they had the appropriate information to predicate an investigation like that. clearly if the reporting from the times is accurate, they felt they met that threshold. >> it's funny what you said, the corrupt leaders of the fbi and targeting the officials of this country. these are tropes, these are things the president has done time and time again. what do you make of what we've seen, those four tweets of the 35 500, 600 characters we've seen this morning. >> if you look at all this, i think what you're trying to see is he's trying to convince

america that, you know, this is what is dangerous. the media is dangerous. hillary clinton is dangerous. the justice department is dangerous. anything that is a threat to me and my power and to my freedom, frankly, is dangerous. so, you know, frankly, i've been telling thaw mexicans and central americans are dangerous. we know for a fact that the russians attacked this country. we know for a fact that the russians targeted this country, again, in the midterms and maybe weren't as successful, but, in fact, perhaps targeting this country again in the 2020 election. this country has not done anything or at least not done enough to stop them or to prevent or to protect our elections going forward. so this president has left our country unguarded. and, yet, he is saying that, hey, be afraid of this, this, this and this.

be afraid of the things that scare me. so i think the that what this really should do, think about what the president is asking us to be afraid of, he's asking us to be afraid of brown people, he's asking us to be afraid of black people, he's asking us to be afraid of a lot of different things that aren't as scary as what has been proven to be actually frightening. >> leave it there. come back again. ben will join us later in the hour to talk more about this block burst piece in the "new york times." what does this shutdown, now the longest in the u.s. history, have in common with the shutdown that used to hold that record? >> i'm a mother of five, grandmother of nine. i know a temper tantrum when i see one. r of nine. i know a temper tantrum when i see one. everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. what's in your wallet?

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. on day 22 of what is now the longest shutdown in history, friday was supposed to be a payday for employees. it was not. there are echos from what is mow the second longest shutdown, the stalemate between president clinton and newt gingrich in 1995. that shutdown lasted 21 days. newt gingrich gave president clinton an ultimatum.

at a breakfast session with reporters, mr. gingrich said he was assaulted and amrauled that on a long flight on air force one, the president failed to invite the republican leaders to the front of the plane to discuss the budget and then made them exit at the rear of the plane. quote, i think that's part of why you ended up with us sending down a tougher continuing resolution. you just wonder where is their sense of manners, where is their sense of courtesy. president clinton was asked about that snub two days after that shutdown started. >> it seems to be in the atmosphere these days in washington that we are connecting things together that don't properly belong together. i can tell you this. if it would get the government open, i'd be glad to tell him i'm sorry. >> a caricature was on the daily news, cry baby, newt's tantrum that caused the shutdown. more than two decades later, the

daily news gave us an update of that caricature. after nancy pelosi and chuck schumer said the president had a temper tantrum. >> no president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down. >> a temper tantrum by the president. i'm a mother of five, grandmother of nine, i know auto temp temper tantrum when i see one. >> president trump responded to those comments yesterday morning. >> i didn't pound on the table. i didn't raise my voice. i calmly said if you're not going to give us strong boarders, bye-bye, and i left. i didn't rant. i didn't rave. i don't have temper tantrums. i really don't. >> yesterday, the illustrator of the 1995 gingrich cartoon offered his historical perspective to "the washington post," quote, my only regret is i left the news before donald

trump became president. we laugh about it, we talk about the politics surrounding all of this, but you've been in government. you've had to deal with these issues. i imagine your reaction to that news, it's an 800,000 people got paychecks they couldn't cash yesterday, hits you in a particularly different way. >> it does. that means there are young people who are working in their first jobs in government, maybe making $30,000, $40,000 a year who may not be able to make rent, pay their share of the house they're living in 37 it means young families who have bills that accumulate with schools and kids and everything else may have to find a way to cover that gap until their paychecks start again. that's a real human impact on people. and you don't see that really being mentioned a whole lot by the president in his remarks. he has certainly spoken about how he thinks there are large number of federal workers who stand behind his position on the wall. but we aren't seeing a lot of

empathy right now in terms of the human impact on people. >> you could do the historical analogs, but that is striking. you have a president now who is talking about potentially having this drag on for a month. >> yeah. >> or months. >> yeah. >> or years. >> yes. >> that is something that has been uttered by this president of the united states. and going back to 1995, there was a shared sentence if not objective that there was something that was going to resolve itself. >> well, i think that for people who buy into every single thing this president says, they look at the federal workforce as people who are living in the swamp and deserve their swampy behavior and they don't realize the overwhelming majority of the federal workforce doesn't live in washington, d.c. so when those people start talking to their elected officials, and they say i am super struggling, that is what we are going to have to wait for. >> i think we should come up with a mental disorder called border wall personality disorder. because i feel like it is --

>> yeah, bwpd because it's the only thing that's keeping him going at this point. and the historical nature to with which it originated into the doubling down on it, into the human suffering because of it, is a profound disorder to me at this point. >> you've been writings about the wall for rolling stone. it has been an evolution. it is a common question for the president, would you be willing to shut down the government over the wall. then there was a point at which he committed to it. but to lissa's point, he's locked in and it's myopic. >> one of the things i wrote about is the fact that he never really ever needed to try to build this thing. if. >> the "new york times" revealed that it actually was started as a nemonic device. sam and roger stone read to him

to remind him to demonize immigrants in his speeches as if it was something he would forget to do. so it became real when he decided to procure funding for it and make it something real for fear that these people who voted for them because he promised them racism would abandon him if he didn't actually deliver. so what his problem is, he says i have to build this thing or i'm going to lose these people and he chooses the strangest political moment to do this right when the democrats are taking over the house. he had two years to press this issue. with complete republican control in washington. when the republicans were ready to lick his boots at every stretch and they would have done anything he asked. he says, guys, this is the one thing i need to get done. >> but the thing that freaks me out so much is --

>> they would have done. >> but let's say he for some weird reason all the funding in the world for the wall happened and they built this wall, 2,500 mile wall that is not going the prevent people from coming. it's an abject failure if it actually happened. so for a man who is so obsessed with making sure that everything he does is great or thinks that, not understanding that if you got your way, it's going be a massive disaster. >> right. >> you know, but pivoting back to the federal shutdown, i mean, you have a disproportionate number of federal workers are -- i mean, you have 12% of americans are african-american but 18% are the federal workforce is african-american. so i grew up, a lot of folks in my life were, you know, pushed towards civil service because it's -- you know, a lot of folks were suffering discrimination in the private sector. they're pushed towards civil service because they're thinking, well, i'm not going to experience as much

discrimination in this area. the government is a good, solid, steady job. well, here, ironically, you're experiencing no -- you're getting no paycheck because the president is essentially, you know, depriving you of that because of a racist wall. >> nick, i'm going the turn to you lastly here. you've got a bill now that's passed the house and the senate. there will be back pay for these workers, provided the president signs this piece of legislation. i think there were eight congressmen who didn't vote for this piece of legislation. how does that change the calculus? you have mick mulvaney saying this is maybe a good thing. it's actually better for these federal workers now that -- >> the forced savings plan. again, i think that doesn't take due regard of the reality of people's lives. most people, particularly people at entry levels, live paycheck to paycheck and decisions have to be made that aren't going to wait for a month or two before

that comes in. when i worngd with the national counter terrorism center, i had dedicated contractor employees who were part of my workforce. it's not clear that they will be paid. in most cases, they probably or likely won't by paid. so. >> is no compensating them. the message we're sending is somehow the work you're doing is less important to the american people than what other people are doing. that's a terrible message. >> day 22, congress is out of town and the president has nothing on his official schedule over the course of this weekend. coming up, we are separating fact from fiction including the claims that advanced border technology alone will not stop illegal immigration. >> i'm a professional in technology. >> no, you're not. no. you don't know how to operate a -- you don't even know how to operate an umbrella. i hear it in the background and she's watching too, saying

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i talk about drugs. i talk about gangs. but a lot of people don't say we have terrorists coming through the southern border because they find that is probably the easiest place to come through. they drive right in and make a left. >> right in and make a left.

president trump warning terrorists are poring in from central mexico. >> cvp has stopped over 3,000 what we call special interest aliens coming in on the southern border. >> last year alone, there were over 4,000 terrorists that cdp picked up. >> u.s. customs and border protection data reports the actual number is 6. >> 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally. >> the state department says there hasn't been any terrorists that they've found coming across the -- >> it's been air, it's by land and it's by sea. >> more than 4,000 known or suspected terrorists attempt to come into our country through various means. >> and in his oval office address this week, there was no

mention of terrorists. the specter on this terrorist threat. and i'm going the read one line here to kick it off. the picture being painted is one in which thousands of terrorists have been stopped crossing our southern border to infiltrate the homeland. if that were true, that would indeed be a crisis. no such crisis exists. >> the argument i've made in the piece is we've always worried about terrorists trying to travel in the united states. if you're inside government, of course that should be on your list of concerns that we've had. we've watched over the years as terrorists organizations have talkedruminated over it. but it's proven difficult for them to do that. >> and something you point out is they get that. >> and they get that.

>> and you talk about allocation of resources. here we're talking about $5.6 billion for this wall. in your piece, you point out places where that money might be better spent to combat homegrown terrorism. >> exactly. i think the threat of terrorism that we are most worried about in the united states is attached to homegrown extremists. people who are attached to an ideology like that of al qaeda or isis or some form of terrorist organization, but in reality they were born here or spent most of their formative years here or they became radicalized while they were here. they did not come here as some terrorist operative. if you're going to combat that problem, a wall isn't going to help you. what is going to help you is investment and prevention programs. and it looks a lot like community policing does around the country. dealing with gang problems is in some ways very similar to the challenge we face in dealing with these homegrown extremists. and modest sums of money can have real impact in this world as opposed to billions of dollars spent on a physical barrier. >> we talk about the myopic

politics, but here it's spending, as well. >> i can't help but listening to nick's comments in this control which is replete with common sense. if only the president had campaigned on multi syllabic words that express common sense policies instead of words like build that wall. obviously, the priority was to say simple things that clearly resinated with a part of the population. who do you go to visit for a photo-op if you're investing money in needed reforms to make sure that people aren't, you know, radicalized on the internet? that's not a photo-op. and it's just dispiriting to think about when we spend all of time talking about a wall which we rightly should focus on because it's a preposterous idea and worse yet, what is the government not protesting in that would protect us more carefully. >> when you watch that montage and you see that turn when sarah

sanders' rhetoric changes, this is an example, i guess i could be cheerful and say where the administration is at least reversing course or changing what is driving rhetoric. >> no. i feel like these are people who might want to have jobs later on in life. but for me, what i feel like is and to nick's point so profoundly is when we decide to solidify what a terrorist is and who we should be afraid of, how we get away with saying it's the most vulnerable people. syrian refugees, people who are traveling in a cara van, escaping governments that are killing their children, the fact that we could so convince and that trump could so convince good hearted americans that these people are coming here to harm us? that they can't see the vulnerability in that?

to me is super disheartening. i just -- yeah. >> last question here, we saw the image there of president trump in mccallen with that charact clack of border patrol officers behind him. i want to end with what you made in this piece, as well. if this were a crisis, if this were happening, we would know about it. the intelligence community make it known that this is a bigger issue than it is. >> that's right. i took a tiny bit of comfort that the terrorism line of argument didn't show up in the president's remarks the other day. they stayed away from making that argument which i suspect reveals they know there is not a terrorism argument to make. i'm when we come back, i'll be joined by ben whittis who says as far as the fbi is concerned, there isn't much of a stretch between an investigation and counterintelligence. stretch between an investigation and counterintelligence. to most, he's phil mickelson...

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. revealing the fbi has looked into whether president trump was secretly working on behalf of russia. the investigation was reportedly opened after president trump fired james comey because the fbi was so concerned by the president's behavior. this was not just an inquiry into whether there was obstruction of justice. it was a counterintelligence

investigation to figure out whether president trump's actions were a threat to national security. in a new article, ben whittis writes it is time to revisit those lengths between collusion 1k3 the person parts of the counsel's probe. all this comes as the president ups his arsenal with several new lawyers ahead of robert mueller's report and the vg investigations on capitol hill and michael cohen gets ready to publicly testify before congress about what he knows. >> i'll read one line from your piece here. what if the obstruction was the collusion or at least a part of it? you, in many thousands of words here, have spelled out the importance of this piece. why is this particular part of it so important? >> so a lot of the discussion that we have had over the last

couple years since the comey firing has been -- has assumed that, you know, there's this underlying counterintelligence investigation that had been going on for a while, the so-called collusion investigation. and then the fbi -- the president fires the fbi director and a few weeks later, we learn that bob mueller is investigationing the firing and whether that obstructed justice. and people had assumed a lot of the debate assumed that those are kind of separate investigations. right? you've got your collusion, your counterintelligence investigation, and then you've got this criminal investigation on the obstruction side. as the "new york times" was reporting this story, i kind of started to revisit the question of is that obstruction investigation separate from the collusion, from the counterintelligence investigation that underlies it.

and i've come to believe they are much, much more closely integrated than people understand, including the fact that the obstruct itself in the fbi's view may well have been a the form of collusion as they understood it. >> the piece on law fair is an expanded version for the memo that he wrote to michael schmidt to see some testimony before the congress. ben, i want to read one line here from the president's attorney, quote, if it was a counterintelligence investigation and it objetained any evidence, it would have to result in some action being taken. this shows how out of control they are. something you write about, something michael schmidt writes about is this distinction.

explain for us, as basically as possible here, what these counterintelligence investigations are like and how often they read to arrests. how much more slowly moving they are than a criminal investigation. >> let's say someone suggested david gura is obstructing justice, so they investigate the possibility of that criminal act. sometimes they know the criminal act took place and the question is who did it. sometimes they wonder if the criminal act took place and they want to figure that out.

for example, russian spies trying to collect intelligence in the united states. that may not be a crime, but there are russian spies doing things, right? so you're trying to figure out how to stop them from doing it or how to feed them information. now a u.s. person who is working with them may be committing a crime. so you might use criminal authorities to deal with the counter intelligence problem set up to investigate. but the purpose of the investigation is not to prosecute a crime. the purpose of the investigation is to follow, track a national security threat in a fashion that allows you to redress the problems that that threat creates. >> ben, lisa green with me here at the table is going to set down her doughnut. she has a question about you your piece. >> ben, i'm curious about your

take on bill bar. it seemed obvious that one of the lines of questions he would face is about his memo, unsolicited memo which explained his concerns about an obstruction charge. how much of a game changer do you think this times article in your own reporting is when it comes to the senate democrats at least to get ready for the hearing? >> so i'm so glad you asked that question. bill barr's memo is a great example of the point i made earlier about people having this really firm sense that the obstruction investigation is a criminal matter and then there's this other counterintelligence investigation. bill barr wrote a 20-page memo arguing that the president couldn't have committed a crime by firing comey or by intervining in the flynn investigation and, therefore, the obstruction investigation

shouldn't exist. the point, the importance of the "new york times" story yesterday is one of the importances is it sort of answers the question of how that investigation exists even if barr is right about the obstruction matter, which is that they were investigating in part a possible crime. i think barr will likely get, first of all, a lot of questions on the merits of his legal argument about obstruction and article two of the constitution, but i also think he will now get probably or should get some questions isn't your memo a giant nonsequitur in terms of what we have learned. >> ben, great to speak to you. the piece, i have it for you, read it in compliment with the "new york times" today. what if the obstruction was the

collusion? i'll tweet a link out to that piece in just a moment. up ahead, as one presidential contender throws her hat in the race, another would-be candidate drops out talking about talking about running and actually running are two very different things. as yet another 200 hopeful gets set to take the stage to announce his own bid for the white house. age to announce his own bid for the white house. your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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>> david, i don't know what i'm going to do after november 6th, 2018. >> i'm thinking about it really hard, elaine. you'll be the first person i let know. >> let me stop you and say i haven't decided to run for president. i'm going the work full time through the election date. we're going to do our work and make a decision when we know th. >> let's see what happens. >> i can't say how many times tom in that tartan tie said he's not saying if he's running for president. after weeks, tom steyer says he is not running for president. movement is starting to pick up. here's kelsey gabbert going all in. >> i have decided to run and will make a formal announcement the next week. >> meanwhile, momentum around kamala harris may announce she is running around dr. martin

luther king jr. day. other democrats are making stops of their own. congressman beato o'rour-- beto o'rourke kicking off a road trip and julian castro will announce and senator elizabeth warren in new hampshire. >> let's start with the gentle lady from hawaii. this is david on how these would be candidates approach this. they won't say yes until they say yes. >> a, why? b, she is somebody who has been really problematic. she defended assad. she wrote an op-ed literally taking on democrats for having criticisms of the knights of columbus and me as a reproductive rights activist.

the knights of columbus funds these fake clinics that lure vulnerable pregnant women to convince them to not have abortions. their financial investment in social issues democrats have said are not part of our platform has been profound. for her to criticize that, for me, like, bye. >> she says bye. >> kelsey gabbert saying, one main central to the rest, the issue of war and peace. the field beginning to fill up. where does she fit in with the others in the wings weighing whether or not to run. >> if war and peace is central to her platform, the fact she went over to meet with bashar al assad, i don't see how that will help her campaign. >> she didn't say which side he was on. >> fair enough. i definitely think her entrance into the race will be interesting but i think it will not be consequential.

>> lisa, what will you be listening for today? julian castro, one candidates on the late show with stephen cobert and his twin brother with him and all but said he is running and today i think he will. >> clear platforms, one of the things elizabeth warren did right when she announced on social media to say, i stand for the middle class and economy and against a rigged system. i'm hoping we have a balance towards clear policy declaration. a lot of people are hoping donald trump leaves through the ballot box and not impeachment process that might not work, it's their job to take him on and what sort of rhetoric will work given everything we talked about. >> i think it's hard to differentiate yourself with your twin brother standing next to

you. i'm not sure that's a super strategy when you're announcing. bring him later. like, which guy? >> i will introduce you later. >> surrogate maybe. >> you have been a career guy. as you listen to all of this, what's of paramount interest to you? >> i would tend to focus on what these emerging candidates say about national security. i understand fully that's not likely the set of issues our next president is most likely elected. what i look forward with these candidates is seriousness, have they invested the time to get smart on issues putting themselves forward as potential presidential candidates. have they done work in the congress as senators or representatives and do they have a voice on national security issues? gabbert is an interesting case. she deserves credit serving her country in military war zones. no question about that. at the same time, she's taken

some pretty interesting positions with respect to syria and the middle east that would raise questions among most national security professionals. >> on the issue of seriousness, you have a gingivitis check of congressman o'rourke as he does a live stream on his dental appointment this week. there is a movement to online. are you seeing a different approach to a number of these candidates. >> while i understand congressman's o'rourke's dental exam wasn't exactly what we understood it to be, when we saw it posted on twitter this week, i do think there is a certain level of revvlatory behavior we don't need to see from our candidates, we need to see seriousness in this age of trump, these candidates telling us what they're for and frankly, telling us we actually -- this president is telling us who we

need to be scared of, who we need to be frightened of, don't need to be telling us about the world we live in. >> you brought cakes last time. >> you brought -- >> cashew bars. >> i feel like lisa brought the gauntlet down. i wasn't told she was bringing pastries and so i want lisa and i to be booked back on the show together and i want a pastry off. >> i will primary you. >> i want a trophy. >> stay tuned for that. thank you for joining me here. up ahead, joy reid diving into that bombshell report from the "new york times" about donald trump secretly working on behalf of russia and the government makes history for all the wrong reasons. tory for all the wrong reasons. [glass shattering!] not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool!

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